Individual event participants (e.g., end users) and companies are continually faced with trying to accurately schedule events, as well as the provisions of ancillary products and services associated with an event, in a time and cost efficient manner. An event can include, for example, a meeting or other gathering of one or more person for a particular purpose. Ancillary products and services can include, for example, catering, maintenance and repair, security, audio/visual equipment, reprographics, mail room services, concierge, temporary labor, office equipment and supplies, and the like. A substantial business and operating advantage can be gained by a company that can allow end-users to accurately schedule and determine the status of events, and the provisions of ancillary products and/or services associated with the particular event. This can help a company reduce cost and minimize the number of personnel required to schedule and to determine the status of these types of events. For example, such improved scheduling may result in a company having an improved operating position, an improved customer response time, better allocation of resources, and a better economic analysis for staffing and event planning.
In conventional scheduling programs, a centralized event scheduler is typically used to interact with a plurality of end-users and a plurality of product and service providers on an individual basis. Typically, each individual end-user or event participant will provide inputs to the centralized event planner and the event planner performs the actual scheduling of the event. Also, products or services for a particular event are typically scheduled separately from the event and also require that the event participants provide input to the central event planner for actual scheduling. This process is very time labor intensive, time consuming, inefficient, and often inaccurate because the central event planner may err in inputting the data from the event participant.
Another business problem typically experienced by existing event scheduling systems is that if an end-user wants to change a provision of a scheduled event, such as the location, date, time, etc., then that person has to contact the centralized event scheduler, who must then contact all the products and services providers associated with that event and reschedule those products and services based on the change to the event, if possible. In addition, if changes are required either by the event participant or by the event planner due to, for example, meeting room or resource conflicts, each individual event participant must be contacted individually and notified of the change. Changes are typically made by the centralized event planner. Again, this process is very labor intensive, time consuming, inefficient, expensive, and often inaccurate because the central event planner may err in inputting changes. Also, conventional systems typically do not have any link or tie-in between resource scheduling and people calendaring functions.
Accordingly, the number of personnel and resources necessary to accurately and reliably schedule and status events has created a burden on companies to develop business strategies for more efficiently scheduling events, as well as the provision of products and/or services for those events.
Various technologies currently exist for centralized event planning, specialty event planning, and calendar scheduling. Some of these conventional technologies leverage the power and speed of a web-based suite of solutions for event planning (e.g., resource oriented) and calendar scheduling (e.g., people oriented). However, these conventional techniques typically include a central point of human input and control, which tend to make these systems inefficient and time consuming. These systems are inefficient in that inputs must be generated by an end-user of the system and these inputs must be provided to a central input point for actual input into the system. Typically, inputs for individual categories are received and inputted separately from one another which leads to further inefficiencies. These processes also require more time to gather and input the information into the system. Some companies use multiple independent systems (e.g., shared services) in order to plan or schedule items. However, these independent systems typically do not communicate or share information between the systems. Also, conflict resolution is not typically included with these systems.
For example, one traditional method of planning or scheduling events uses an electronic scheduling program called “EVENTMASTER™” and “EVENTMASTER PLUS!™” manufactured by CaterMate of Indianapolis, Ind. EVENTMASTER™ provides solutions for catering and event management and is designed to make a food service operation more profitable. Its features can be used on a standalone PC or by concurrent networked users.
EVENTMASTER™ and EVENTMASTER PLUS!™ are event management products typically used by the catering, food service, and hospitality industries. With EVENTMASTER™, an event planner can typically: generate events, proposals, contracts, and invoices; generate pre-cost and price events and menus; create and review staffing requirements for events and maintain a staff schedule; manage cash flow and event billing, and interface the system's ledger with third party accounting applications; and create a set of management reports that gives the user information on pre-costing, forecasted revenues, critical dates, booking problems, and customized client correspondence templates. EVENTMASTER™ also allows integrated food production, menu planning, purchasing, and inventory functions.
In addition, these systems can be fully integrated with the CaterMate Suite to provide a solution for the management of food production, menu planning, purchasing, inventory, and event planning. With the CaterMate Suite, an event planner can: generate event orders, proposals, contracts, and invoices; create custom menus; place food orders electronically; track inventories; print key reports; extend recipes; record service actuals; and improve service and reduce costs.
However, this method of scheduling has a relative narrow application in that it only covers the operations aspects of event planning. This system only performs one specific task (e.g., one vertical silo) and is therefore a single function solution. EVENTMASTER™ and EVENTMASTER PLUS!™ do not provide for front-end order entry and customer interfacing, nor do they provide an order management service delivery interface. As in the systems described above, this conventional scheduling system requires a centralized operator or event planner to input event data into the system and to make any changes to events already scheduled within the system. This conventional system also tracks the entry based on a customer identifier and not based on the event itself. Therefore, there is no integration or cross-connection between the event and the services for the event. Also, no commerce is actually transacted from the scheduler system. This scheduler system also does not track customer usage, preferences, buying habits, or patterns. EVENTMASTER™ and EVENTMASTER PLUS!™ do not schedule services, but rather only schedule fixed resources that are custom built into each version of the scheduler software. In addition, the scheduler system does not provide the user with alternatives, or outside resources, in the event that the fixed resources entered in the database of the scheduler are unavailable. Accordingly, the EVENTMASTER systems are not a commerce solving or commerce generating solution.
AMPLITUDE™ is another system that leverages the power of the Internet to provide a suite of solutions to automate everyday business processes, including the scheduling of resources. These solutions include web-based solutions for shared resource scheduling, service request automation, alternative workspace management, and event calendaring. This resource scheduling solution improves a user's ability to complete workplace-related tasks, such as scheduling and coordination. In addition, this resource scheduling suite can be incorporated into email outsourcing solutions, such as CRITICALPATH™.
The AMPLITUDE™ system only allows an operator to manage resources and does not provide for the scheduling of services associated with an event. As such this system has a room-based or resource-based functionality, and therefore is not event-based. In addition, the AMPLITUDE™ system does not allow the system to transact commerce outside of the AMPLITUDE™ system. The resources controlled by the AMPLITUDE™ scheduler system are fixed when the system is constructed and no outside service providers can access this conventional system if and when the fixed resources are unavailable. Although limited commerce may be transacted by the system in that, for example, the system allows the user to order catering and the order gets delivered, all orders originate within the system and are serviced and fulfilled from providers within the system database. This type of one-to-one commerce is inefficient and does not allow flexibility or scalability of the system (e.g., it does not allow one-to-many, or e-commerce, to occur).
The features or functionalities are grouped within the AMPLITUDE™ system into vertical “silos”. A user can access each individual silo one at a time. No integration or cross-connection is provided between individual silos. Accordingly, when scheduling resources, the user must access each silo independently to schedule the specific resource contained therein, and then must exit that silo before entering the next desired silo to schedule another resource. This is also true for any changes that must be made to the calendaring and resources scheduling suite. This process is very labor intensive, time consuming, inefficient, expensive, and often inaccurate because the central event planner may err in inputting changes.
Therefore, a need exists for an event-based system and method for more accurately and efficiently scheduling an event and ancillary products/services associated with the event by allowing individual event participants (e.g., end users) to plan an event, as well as ancillary products and/or services associated with the event. The system and method need to be driven by the individual event participants to more efficiently and accurately schedule and to determine the status of an event, as well as products and services associated with a particular event in real time.